book review: The Five Love Languages

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet.

Seriously. How could I have gotten this far without it?

There's an amazing book that will change your life forever if you go out and read it. How do I know? As the saying goes, I'm not just the president, I'm also a member.

Gary Chapman has written an incredible book about the ways in which people express and feel love called The Five Love Languages. At a certain point, the book gets a little more God-and-Jesusy than I like, but before it gets there, he shares with us some observations about the way people love that have changed the way I both interpret people's behavior and express my own feelings.

Chapman's argument is that there are five major styles -- languages, if you will -- that people use to express their love. And those, in turn, influence the way people feel loved by other people.

Those five languages are these:

1. Acts of Service

Some people will DO THINGS for those they love. They will take on the chores they know disgust you, or go out of their way to perform a task for you, whether you've asked them to do it or not.

My father is a perfect example of this. Once, when I was incredibly sick (and a mere two blocks from the doctor's office), I called him hoping for some sympathy. My father, instead of telling me how much he loved me and letting me know I would be ok, immediately offered to get into the car, drive to where I was, and take me to the doctor. He was more than willing to take 3 hours out of his day to find me, chauffeur me to wherever I needed to go, and then go home. Because he understands love to be about DOING.

2. Words of Praise

Some people are moved to show their feelings by saying nice things. It could be as simple as "you look pretty" or as complex as a sonnet on the shine of your hair, it doesn't matter. Words of praise people will TELL you how much they love you.

I had a boyfriend once who fell into this category. He sent me the most romantic letters, poems, and emails. He spared no opportunity to speak to me with words that made me smile.

3. Quality Time

Still, others prefer stopping their world and making spending time with you the most valuable thing they could be doing at the moment. To these people, it doesn't necessarily matter what you do, just as long as you are BEING together.

I once had a boyfriend who found that time on the phone to his family was also quality time. What mattered to him wasn't the amount of time, but rather the intention behind the time -- making space to really connect with another person -- that mattered.

(This was a good thing, as he happened to live across the country from me, too.)

4. Physical Touch

These people are the huggers. They're the hand-holders, neck-nuzzlers, and back touchers. They're the ones who seek reassurance and connection through physicality. And it's not just about Naked Time. It could be sitting on the couch with his feet in your lap, or patting him on the head as you walk out the door. These people FEEL love physically.

5. Gifts

Gift people like to give things -- expensive or free -- to those they love. They collect and hand over presents that the object of their affection has either requested or not.

My mother is a perfect example of this. She always plies us with food or "something I saw at the store that made me think of you." I remember growing up and taking long car trips -- my mother would GIVE us a little something to unwrap every hour.

Odds are that you fall most strongly into one category or another. That doesn't mean you have to speak only one language, but that your main mode is likely to be only one of the above.

Me? I'm all about gifts. I love to give people presents, and I've been known to squeal with glee when someone gives me something that made them think about me while they were out and about. But I'm also into words of praise. After that, I'm probably acts of service, and then physical touch. Quality time is very difficult for me to understand -- why wouldn't you want to be with me all the time?? So it's best for me to go out with men who are either gifters or who understand the value of gifts to me.

And this is where it gets cool. When you know the five languages, you can choose to express yourself in any language, not just the one that makes the most sense to you. If you know your partner feels love through quality time, you can make an appointment with him or her. Conversely, you can interpret your partner's behavior -- wanting to spend a night with you -- as his or her way of expressing love.

Let's go back to my father for a minute. When I called him, I was looking for words of praise -- "You'll be ok," "I love you," that kind of thing. But my father hasn't read this book and doesn't know that his way of expressing and my way of feeling loved aren't the same. So it was up to me to interpret his act of service as love. Once I realized that he was sharing his love in the only language he spoke, I was able to hear how much he cared.

Similarly, with my Quality Time boyfriend. When I realized that his language was one I couldn't comprehend, I told him about the five styles. I told him I was more a gifts/words of praise kind of girl, and he tried to modulate his behavior to meet me there. And I tried to see his desire to spend time together as his way of saying he loved me.

This has been an incredible tool for me in understanding why people behave the way they do. Why, when all that matters to me is that you tell me I'm beautiful, are you always taking out the trash? Who cares about watching TV on Friday nights -- can't you just bring me home a tootsie roll?

And one of the really neat things to look at is whether or not you use your own love language on yourself. If you're a gifter, do you allow yourself to buy that sweater you can't stop thinking about? If you like words of praise, what kind of things do you say to the mirror? When do you schedule the quality time with yourself?

Forgive my oversight in not having posted this sooner. There's still time -- go out and buy this book! (See? I'm trying to gift it to you right now!)

the most perfect baby in the world

Watch out, because I'm about to brag.

I have the most perfect nephew in the entire universe. He's cute, hilarious, warm, sleepy, adorable, and the softest, sweetest lump ever created. And he's mine!

Over Thanksgiving, I was rocking him to sleep on my shoulder and his tiny little butt was tucked into my elbow, his sweet little breaths coming quickly and shallowly near my ear, and my heart just melted.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I looked at my sister.

"Do you ever just love him so much that it hurts?"

She looked at me with a smile and four months of Mommy Wisdom, and then I loved her so much that it hurt.

So, Kate, aside from the fact that he's perfect and you're lucky, who cares? Finding and connecting to that kind of pure love was so powerful, so clean and raw, I feel like it's something everyone should experience. It felt like a light shining from the depths of my heart onto the baby, and my sister, and my family, and me.

Maybe you're not into babies. That's fine. They're noisy and they poop a lot. I get it. What I'm saying is how important it is to really connect with something pure and something 100% love. If that's theatre, then see a show. If it's music, start playing. If it's writing, grab your pencil. And you don't have to marry it, or move in with it, or make it your life. (Lord knows I've turned down a free apartment in Boston more times than my sister has offered.) Just connect with it. Feel it. Let it shred you a little. The stitching back together feels incredible.

Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Emotional Coat

A few weeks ago I returned to Yale for a reunion of my comedy group. I knew that going back to campus would be hard -- being in New Haven has always stressed me out, but when I got there, I met up with my best friend from the group (and one of my favorite people of all time) and we caught up.

"I'm just not where I thought I would be," he said, after outlining what's going on in his life. And I knew the feeling. When I graduated, I thought that by 33 I'd be running the world. I'd be some famous Broadway actor at night and running meetings in powersuits during the day. I'd have an apartment uptown and -- get this -- a car! As time has passed, though, I've gotten used to the simpler pleasures in life, and no longer seek stardom or parking. In truth, my friend is exactly where I'd like to be. He has a stable, challenging, great-paying job, a husband, a house, and two new cats. You know... everything!

"I'm not where I thought I'd be, either," I said, and all my doubts came flooding back in. Was I ever going to meet someone? Was I ever going to make enough money to afford a house or a baby? Was I ever going to amount to anything?!

At some point over the weekend, I realized that I was in the passing lane on the expressway to the land of self-doubt that I inhabited as a late teenager. And what better place to reinforce the message of "what have you done with your life?" than one of the most prestigious (and expensive) universities in the country? I felt tense, sick to my stomach, and unable to sleep.

I met a woman who made me feel really safe, and in talking with her I realized that I didn't have to feel so gross. I've accomplished a lot since college, not the least of which was growing into a sense of self that isn't defined by the need to amount to something. The difference between me now and me in college is that now I wear that self-doubt like a big, ugly coat. It gets hot, so I take it off any chance I get. Sometimes I even check it at the door! In college, though, I wore it like a skin, not even aware that it was something to be shed.

I bring this up now because soon, many of us will be headed home for the holidays. And what better place to revert to old habits and old messages of worthlessness than our childhood homes? (I know, sad, right?) I'm blessed. My family is so open that we've talked about these things, and about how much better it feels if we behave like children on purpose instead of by default. We ask for the attention we seek, and I find that I don't need to ask for nearly as much as I used to subliminally (and ineffectually) demand.

It's unpleasant, but I encourage you to put on your coat. Maybe it doesn't look like mine, laden with doubts about how good you are, (though if I had to guess, I'd say it probably does). Whatever material is used to construct it, pick that up. And then, before you go home, practice putting it down again. Hell, put down the coat you're wearing today. See that you have a choice about the thoughts that run through your head, and, in the spirit of the holidays, choose nicer thoughts.

Santa would want you to.

carrots and sticks and bears, oh my!

I've been reading an interesting book about motivation and sticking to your commitments called Carrots and Sticks, written by a Yale professor of economics. The book proposes two different approaches to goal-reaching; being rewarded for reaching milestones along your journey, and being punished for not doing so.

(Hence, carrots and sticks.)

The interesting thing, though, is that Ian Ayres (the author) has built a website, www.stickk.com, that allows people to put up a certain amount of their own money as a bet against their failure. For example, Ayers himself has been striving to keep his weight under 180 pounds. To aid in this, he has agreed that stickk.com can take the $500 he has put at risk every week if he goes over 180. Even more compellingly, he has agreed that stickk.com can send that money to a cause he does not support.

How does the website know that he's gone over 180 pounds? Well, he tells them. Part of Ayres' commitment is his willingness to participate in the contract (and report honestly) in the first place. Because are you really going to bet $500 that you'll stop a behavior you kindasortakinda want to stop? I doubt it. Stickk.com encourages users to identify an external arbiter to oversee these contracts -- someone like a coach, for example -- to make sure the person is reporting honestly, and really making use of the system.

Because once someone lies about one commitment, the whole thing is shot.

I find this particular type of motivation both exciting and terrifying. Putting $500 of my own money at risk would ensure that any undesired behavior would cease to happen -- especially if that money was going to, say, the NRA, the Tea Party, or Sarah Palin's campaign fund -- and yet, I don't know if I could forgive myself if an emergency happened and I couldn't stick to my commitment. Not only would I be letting myself down, I'd be out $500, and would probably have to drum up another $500 to donate to positive causes to balance out the harm I've done.

And that's what I like about using money as a motivator; it brings the issue into the front of my consciousness. There are a number of things I want to do -- like blogging regularly -- that, if I lost $500 every time I didn't do them would happen more often. At the same time, I'm not sure I'd want to live with the stress of that kind of money hanging over me.

A client of mine is using this approach -- not through the website, but through a verbal agreement with me -- and I'm amazed to see the amount of work he's doing. Will this last longer than one week? I'm not sure. But it definitely is motivating him to make absolutely sure the desired behavior happens seven days in a row.

Who knew Sarah Palin could be so useful?

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker (part 2)

In my previous post, I started raving about a great book I've read recently called What Happy People Know, by Dan Baker. In it, the author outlines six tools for happiness that you can employ to make your regular life happier, or to use in times of trouble and misery, just to get through the day. (I like doing both, thankyouverymuch.)

The six happiness tools are:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with Your Strengths

5. the Power of Language and Stories

6. Multidimensional Living

I covered Appreciation, Choice, and Personal Power in the last post, so today I'll give you a run down of the last three, starting with...

Leading with Your Strengths

It feels good to do what you're good at. That's no great secret. And there have been two camps in the Self-Mastery world for years -- those who say to play to your strengths, and those who say to develop your weaknesses. But if you think about it, only the first camp really makes sense. Why burden yourself with improving your calculus skills if doing calculus doesn't make you happy?

Baker says that in working with severely troubled people, his first efforts are to connect them to their strengths. Everyone is good at something, even if that something isn't something you value. Baker's work starts with finding his clients' strengths and then transferring those skills into other areas of his clients' lives.

For example, he worked with an anorexic patient and never once asked her about food. Instead, they spent the first few sessions talking about what she loved -- her dog -- and then finding ways to expand that circle of love onto herself. When we surround ourselves with what we're good at, we feel powerful and joyful, and those lead us to greater and greater adventures.

The Power of Language and Stories

Several years ago, if you asked me if it was important whether someone said "I can't" or "It's hard," I would have said no. I would have told you that there are things I can't do, and things that are hard for me to do, and I would have done my best to convince you that that was "the truth."

Now, however, after a few years of playing with language and its effect on me, I have a completely different opinion. I have first hand experience of the power of words on the stories I tell myself. So I was pleased to see this show up in Baker's book.

He talks about how engaging in self-talk is how people begin to make sense of the world around them. (Incidentally, there's a Radiolab episode that talks about the same thing, and I was just listening to it before I sat down to write. Thanks, Universe!) And that, if we talk to ourselves the way we want others to talk to us, we're already on a better foot, saying "we do not describe the world we see, we see the world we describe."

He, too, cautions against using "can't," "don't," "shouldn't," and "won't," and goes on to warn against using the passive voice instead of the active one. But the key point I took away from the whole section on language is his idea of telling healthy stories vs. horror stories.

"When you meet someone new and tell him the quick version of the story of your life, do you usually tell him a healthy story or a horror story? Most people want to tell a healthy story, because nobody wants to look bad. But many people just don't know how. They're so accustomed to telling themselves horror stories in their self-talk that they just start blurting out all their fears and feelings of helplessness, although they often cloak them in terms of humor or heroics. They like their job -- but it was a real struggle to get it, and it still feels precarious. Their children are doing well -- but they're teenagers, and you know how that is..."

He goes on to say that it's "smart to tell yourself and others healthy stories about all the little incidents of your daily life. If you're late for work, don't tell yourself that your boss is going to kill you and that you're a loser for sleeping late. Tell yourself you're lucky to have a job where you can be late once in a while, and that you're going to use this experience to be more punctual in the future. The horrific version will just make you more defensive, while the healthy one will make you appreciative. People will notice the difference."

Multidimensional Living

When I read this book, I was dating a wonderful guy who seemed to have it all -- genius smart, off-the-wall funny, good-looking, and a great communicator. And the reason our relationship fell apart was because he was allowing himself to be ruled by his job. He had no time for a relationship -- or anything else, for that matter. And he wasn't happy. So this section really resonated with me.

A question that Baker asks his clients (to gauge where they are in their heads) is "are you winning at life?" The responses he gets vary, but if a person has no idea how to even approach the question, he gets a sense immediately that they are out of balance. ("Happy people," he says, "almost always think they're winning, even when they don't know what they're winning.")

Most people suffer from a lack of clear, values-based priorities, and so end up floating through life, buffeted by whatever comes their way. Baker argues that if you want happiness, you need to decide what you really want and then put your energy where it will do the most good.

There are three arenas in life, he argues; 1) purpose (often, work), 2) health, and 3) relationships. If you integrate all three arenas into your every day life, you can let your passions take you where they will -- because you have the grounding in the other areas to pull you back to center. It's when one of the arenas has more sway and importance than the others that people can get out of whack.

And that's the extremely nutshelled version of the book. There is so much more to it, so much that I want to xerox and hand out to people on the subway like those crazy stores that want to buy your gold.

The New York Public Library has five copies of this book, and at the time of this writing, four of them were available. If you're interested in finding balance, connecting with your heart, and having a handful of tools in your toolbox of self-improvement, this is a great book for you. (It certainly was for me.)

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker

I read a lot of self-help books, but rarely do they offer me so much new information that I feel compelled to share them with you. (The last book I recommended was The Magic LAMP, which I read in February!) I recently came across a book, though, that I want you all to go out and buy/rent/borrow/steal. (Ok, maybe not with the stealing.) Today! Now! Go!

Oh wait. You need to know what book first.

In this book, What Happy People Know, Dan Baker, the head of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch (a spa/resort/retreat I may never make enough money to visit) offers up useful information in an approachable and easily digestible fashion.

According to Baker, there are six major happiness tools people can use:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with your strengths

5. Language and stories

6. Multidimensional living

Because it's had such an impact on me, I thought I'd take you through some of the highlights of the tools.

1. Appreciation

I've talked about appreciation and gratitude before, but Baker takes these concepts much deeper, offering three or four practicable tools to make appreciation not just part of your regular routine, but also part of your disaster recovery mode.

For example, he shares one exercise called "Freeze Frame." When things are going All Kinds of Wrong, instead of thinking about how things are getting out of control, you think of something you appreciate. A loved one, a natural phenomenon, your dog, whatever. Doing this will calm your heart rate and give you space in which to see things differently. I've used it, and found it incredibly helpful.

He also talks about optimism, and how being an optimist is not simply walking around with a dopey smile on your face and approaching life with a glass-half-full attitude, but rather, it's an understanding that the more difficult or painful a situation is, the more profound the learning will be. This has helped me a lot recently while going through an incredibly emotionally break up -- I knew that when I came out the other side of the break up I would know more about myself and how I operate, which felt like a gift compared to the kick in the pants the break up was giving me. Does it make me want to run right out and break up again? No, absolutely not. But it does give me some silver lining and light at the end of an otherwise unpleasant-smelling tunnel.

(His mother also chimed in with the soothing idea that "no two people ever love each other the same -- and that whoever loves the most is the lucky one.")

2. Choice

Baker calls choice "the voice of the heart" and "honesty in action." I like that.

He talks about failure, helplessness, and powerlessness (and a bunch of shocked dogs... which made me sad) and offers some thoughts that can serve to remind us to stay strong:

1. Failure only occurs when you quit -- he talks about how Thomas Edison "failed" to design a lightbulb until his 2000th try

2. Be brave enough to resist when someone offers you the tempting scenario in which they strip from you the right to make your own decisions. While it is occasionally unpleasant to make (and live with) our own choices, imagine the other alternatives...

Finally in this section, he discusses the "Life Changing Quarter Second" in which we have a brief moment of control over our emotional reactions. There is a quarter second in which we can wrest our thinking away from a fear reaction and into a considered response, but we have to see and seize that moment regularly to stay in a place of choice.

3. Personal Power

This is that indefinable something that enables happy people to be happy, even when things are difficult. (In my leadership class, we call it the "Internal Locus of Control," meaning essentially the feeling that, no matter what comes your way, you can do something about it.)

Baker encourages his readers to watch out for VERBs -- Victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame. Highlights include:

V: He says that other people can hurt you, but only you can victimize yourself.

E: The mind and body thrive on struggle. Satisfaction without effort doesn't create happiness, it makes for boredom, alienation, weakness and feelings of worthlessness. And I can tell you that, after looking for a new job for six months, I was so elated to finally get one because I had struggled and put my time in.

R: There's a difference between assistance and rescue. There is nothing wrong with asking for help as long as you're willing to do your share of the work.

B: Blame solves nothing. If you were in a car driven by a friend that was going over a cliff, would blaming that friend keep you from crashing into the ravine below? Instead, what can you do to improve the situation for yourself (and/or your friend)?

We'll take a look at the other three tools in my next post.

what are you chasing?

I live in New York, where it seems like everybody is chasing something. And I worry that people don't really know what they're chasing, and how their thoughts and behavior are impacting their journey.

Take me, for example, back when I was acting. I was chasing The Big Dream -- except I wasn't specific about what that meant to me. I just wanted to "be an actor in New York." Well, that's actually absurdly easy. Get a headshot, go on an audition, and voila! You're an actor in New York.

So I sat down to get more specific, and I realized that my goal was "to make a living acting in New York." Then I was getting somewhere. I had a clearer destination, and could focus my energy more tightly. Except that I was missing a piece -- how I wanted to be or feel while I was pursuing that goal. Because, as it played out, while I was chasing Making a Living as an Actor in New York, I was unhappy. I was working a job that made me want to stab people in the face, I felt like I had no time for anything that wasn't theatre, I was comparing myself to other actors (and coming up short) and, in general, I just didn't like the way I felt about myself.

I was, as it turned out, chasing the wrong thing, like the dog chasing the mailman. (Unless, of course, the mailman is delivering Omaha Steaks, but in my case he wasn't.)

It wasn't until I got specific about what I saw as success that I realized I was on the wrong path.

The same thing has happened with dating. I have defined and redefined (and redefined) (oh, and redefined) what I consider desirable characteristics in a guy. The three core qualities -- funny, smart, and self-aware -- stay the same, but the fourth quality always changes. Sometimes it's kind or thoughtful, sometimes it's simply ready, but as I have more experience, I can get more specific about what I want, and again, how I want to feel while pursuing it.

This last piece is often overlooked because we're not taught about feelings. But I think it's of the utmost importance. If you're ok with, say, pursuing a career in acting to the exclusion of everything else, that's great -- but be clear with yourself how long you're willing to do that. A month? A year? Your whole life? There are trade offs to everything, and making sure that what you're giving up is worth what you're getting is incredibly important.

The final thing I encourage people to look at surrounding success is how you will know you've made it. Often times, people get so wrapped up in the struggle of "making it" that the small successes they've had along the way no longer matter -- that big achievement is just around the corner waiting to be reached. And that's when success becomes a trap. Because as I know from first hand experience, it's easy to be more attracted to the pursuit of it than the enjoyment of it.

So to avoid the perpetual pursuit, define what it will look like when you've reached your goal. When will you finally consider yourself successful? And does that necessarily mean there is nothing left to achieve? I find that goal-setting is super-useful in this kind of work because it gives you a number of small victories to celebrate as you reach out for things that satisfy and fulfill you.

And really, is using the word "success" even useful? For so many of us (myself included) there is a sticky quality to it, one that implies comparison, scarcity, lack, and an overall "not good enough to be successful" quality. If you fall into that category (welcome!), then perhaps simply "happiness" is a better choice of words for you than "success."

To wrap up, if you haven't thought about it yet, I urge you (whether you live in New York or not) to take a minute (or hell, a year) and get really clear not just about what you want, but how you'll know when you're there.

In a nutshell:

1. Define success

2. Be willing to be flexible about that definition and change it as your circumstances change

3. Be clear about who/how you want to be as your pursue success

4. Know how it will feel when you're successful, and be open to that feeling

5. Use a different word if "success" or "successful" brings up negative feelings for you.